Harinder Singh Sikka, the writer of the book Calling Sehmat on which Alia Bhatt and Vicky Kaushal's film Raazi was based on, amid the nepotism debate, called out Meghna Gulzar and said that she had him removed from everything, even delayed the release of his book and had him removed from the Jaipur Literature Festival and awards functions.
During a discussion with a news channel, present with a printout of an email, BollywoodLife quoted Harinder saying, "I wrote Raazi and this is proof against my name by (Meghna) Gulzar. It was written to me by Jaipur Literature Festival. I was removed from everything, from Filmfare, my book was not allowed to be launched by Gulzar in person. You want me read out this email where Jaipur Literature Festival head says, ‘In my 35 years of career, I have never seen anybody bulldozing to remove one person.’ In this particular case, Gulzar is the case in point."
He further added, "My book was tried to be delayed? Why? Every credit must go to Meghna Gulzar. First Jaipur Literature Festival, then the Filmfare Awards. The best original screenplay award was to be given to me but it was removed, it was given to some film by the name Andhadhun which was a copy of a French book because I was to be removed."
In addition to this, Harinder also narrated an incident wherein his film, Nanak Shah Fakir was rejected for Oscars because he was an outsider even though the film had won three national awards.
